Regular season award predictions

It’s late June, and that means it’s prediction time. Today we’re predicting who will win the big regular season awards this year. I’ll go first.

MVP and Offensive Player of the Year: Peyton Manning. Yes, Manning lost Eric Decker. But the Broncos replaced him with Emmanuel Sanders and Cody Latimer. That’s an upgrade. And Manning gets back Ryan Clady, the All-Pro left tackle who missed all but two games last season.

Defensive Player of the Year:Patrick Willis. He could lead the NFL in tackles while NaVorro Bowman is injured.

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Jordan Matthews. He’s taking Jason Avant’s old job as the Eagles’ slot receiver. Avant played 800 snaps and received 71 targets last season. Matthews will be a big upgrade over Avant right away.

Defensive Rookie of the Year: Jadeveon Clowney. He could finish the season with 20 sacks — he will be playing next to J.J. Watt.

Comeback Player of the Year: Eli Manning. He was dreadful last season. He threw 27 interceptions, by far the most in the league. But the Giants hired a new offensive coordinator — Ben McAdoo. They spent a top-15 pick on a wide receiver — Odell Beckham Jr. And they signed a good running back — Rashad Jennings. Jennings might be the most important addition. Last season, Manning’s passer rating on play-action passes was a miserable 65.1. It 104.9 in 2012 when he had Ahmad Bradshaw.

Coach of the Year: Chip Kelly. The Eagles’ offense will score more points and gain more yards than it did last season despite losing DeSean Jackson. The Eagles will win 13 or 14 games.

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Well, its wayyy too early for very meaningful predictions, but its also too hot for gardening, so while taking an ice water break:
MVP/OPoY- Sure Peyton and the usual suspects; Brady, Brees, Rogers, Adrian Peterson.
DPoY- Sooo early. PWilly as good as any guess.
ORoY- Not sure Mathews has any better track than Watkins or Evans. If he wins the starting job at Center, our Mr. Martin could be a candidate.
DRoY- When will Clowney be 100% and even get back on the field? KMack of the Raiders will be in the mix.
Comeback- Eli, sure, others could include Sam Bradford, Julio Jones, Navarro Bowman, Gronkowski, Reggie Wayne

That’s true, but Fales has more options than the other QBs to spread the throws to, and I believe Kelly encourages him to spread it around. Also, don’t discount Watkins and Evans putting up some numbers due to their team playing catch-up so often.
Shrug. Not saying Mathews can’t win that, but it’s not an obvious choice for me.

Latimer was one of my draft crushes. After his pro-day I sought out his footage. He has some of the good qualities of AJ Jenkins, but with much more physicality and spacing instincts (likely from his basketball background). No drops in his last five games was a big plus.

My defensive rookie of the year is Aaron Donald… or Mack.

My 49er comeback players are Hunter and Crabtree. Even though they were back last year, they weren’t all the way back.

I don’t pretend to know how serious. My take is that it robs him of reps and conditioning work this summer, which slows or delys his development curve. That could shave his production early in the season allowing someone else’s performance to prevail. Right now the Texans don’t seem worried, but, uh, he does seem to be working through something. It’s hard to be The Best when you aren’t your best.

Razor
It seems like there are a few questions on each of those defenses. I agree (kiss of death for predictions!) on GB.
Not sure between Det-Chi; Bears may not have done enough on D.
Did Vikes go backward on D?

MVP-OPOY: Colin Kaepernick when you have the leagues best TE and offensive coordinator on the team what else do you need? Oh and Harbaugh said he’s going to have a break out season so this is pretty much a lock.

Offensive rookie: Bishop Sankey. The Titans OL will bound back from a not so great season and the best RB in the draft will have a great year. Just imagine if Locker, Whitehurst, Mettenberger all get hurt he could even take a few hand offs from the greatest 4th string QB prospect to ever grace an NFL team.

Defensive rookie:Trent Murphy – this is a slam dunk pick. He’ll have 28 sacks and score 3 TD’s after ripping the ball out of the QB’s hands and out running the entire offensive unit down the field.

Coach: Marc Trestman the Bears are my pick for surprise team this year.

Comeback player: DeMarcus Ware. With all that thin air to run through he’ll feel like he’s 25 again.

How adorable… Better odds that Colin gets MVP before you get ONE prediction right this year, Grant. Heck, I will personally label you a bonafide amateur blogger if you make a single observation that comes true.

MVP & OPoY: Aaron Rodgers. The Packers drafted 3 WRs and a TE to replenish the receiving stocks. With Nelson and Cobb returning, a solid running game headed by Lacy, as well as Boykin in the mix for the #3 WR spot, Rodgers has all the weapons he needs to put on an offensive masterclass in 2014.

DPoY: JJ Watt. With Clowney added to the DL, the best defensive player in the NFL could reach new heights. I think he’ll be head and shoulder above the rest.

ORoY: Odell Beckham Jr. Having a QB like Eli Manning and playing in an offense that likes using 3 WR sets means Beckham will get plenty of opportunities to showcase his skills. His ability to make plays in the return game will also help get his name in the headlines, which will help his case for ORoY honours. Jordan Matthews for the Eagles is one to keep an eye on (as outlined by Grant), as is Richard Rodgers for the Packers and potentially Teddy Bridgewater for the Vikings.

DRoY: CJ Mosley. Clowney would seem an obvious choice, but I think year 1 he’ll be more about taking pressure off Watt than racking up the big stats. Mosley is a smart and instinctive LB and word out of Ravens camp is he’s looking like a day 1 starter. The Ravens have a good, big DL in front of him to occupy blockers, so I expect Mosley to rack up some big numbers if he does indeed start as a rookie. Lamarcus Joyner for the Rams is another I’ll be keeping tabs on, as is our very own Jimmie Ward and the Steelers’ Ryan Shazier.

CPoY: Lots of potential options here – RGIII, Doug Martin, Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware, Julio Jones, Rob Gronkowski, Percy Harvin, Brian Cushing, Jason Pierre-Paul, even Matt Schaub. But I agree with Grant – Eli Manning has the weapons around him and a new OC to help him rebound from a very poor 2013.

Whether its bad Eli or good Eli, one thing he always does is give his receivers an opportunity to make plays. He’s not afraid to throw it up for his receivers to make a play. WRs for the Giants can put up good numbers even when Eli is turning the ball over at a fast rate. And that is why I think Beckham stands a good chance of putting up big numbers as a rookie.

“The Packers drafted 3 WRs and a TE to replenish the receiving stocks.”
————————-
That just means they have 3 rookie WR’s and a TE. WR is the second hardest position after QB to learn in the NFL and it’s a bit much to assume that 3 rookies will be up to speed in their rookie campaign.

If all they had was rookies then sure, that would be a valid argument. But they still have Nelson and Cobb, + Boykin, + a strong running game to lean on. The rookies will provide better talent at the bottom of the receiving chart, and give Rodgers a nice stable of receivers to throw to.

Having rookie WRs as your #4 and #5, you aren’t really expecting them to be leading your receiving crew. I’m sure they will hope one of Adams or Abbrederis will beat out Boykin for the #3. Regardless, they’ve restocked their WR talent.

I understand your point, but you are making it sound as if a rookie WR can’t even contribute, or can’t contribute more than an average veteran might. That simply isn’t the case. With 3 rookie WRs competing with Boykin, odds are one of them will develop fast enough to be a contributor this year.

CfC, you are taking one sentence of my reasoning and seeing that is my main point. The fact is, he has his top 2 receivers returning, a decent #3 in Boykin who really came on last season, + a solid running game, and on top of that they have added some talented receivers through the draft. I only led with that sentence because that is the difference from last year – and if Rodgers had stayed healthy all of last season he may well have been in the running for MVP anyway.

CfC, why do you think I’m getting down about your comments? I’m not, I assure you. I’m simply giving you my reasoning why I think it is valid to include the drafting of 3 WRs as a reason why Rodgers has a good shot at the MVP.

First off, let me clarify something. I never said he would win the MVP “because” they drafted 3 WRs. That was your interpretation of my comment. The greater reasons for me thinking he’ll have a good shot at winning MVP is the Packers have a good core of returning offensive players, which I mentioned in my initial post though didn’t think I needed to spell out. He would have a shot at MVP just with those guys, but, an already good stable of offensive weapons has been augmented by an infusion of some new talent, which is a bonus for Rodgers and the Packers offense.

Scooter I’ve also never intimated or suggested that it was your sole reason. You’re being overly defensive for whatever reason. I’ll say it one more time and if you want to continue to argue for no reason then knock your little Aussie socks off, if you’re wearing any;

I personally wouldn’t list, among the many reasons why I would select Rogers to win the MVP, that the team just drafted 3 WR’s.

Rodgers and the receivers battled through injury last year. If they have a bunch of injuries again this year, obviously Rodgers will struggle to put up big numbers. But if they stay healthy for the most part, that is still one of the most dangerous offenses in the NFL. Actually, probably more dangerous than it was a couple of seasons back, as they now have a legit running game.

No, I don’t think the Packers have a chance in hell of beating the 49ers. Nice try though Jim Dandy. Seriously, maybe a 33% chance of victory as long as Lacey doesn’t have a stomach ache or his asthma flares up or whatever excuse you want to throw out there….

“Improved physicality on offense will limit the amount of time that defense will be on the field…’

The same can be said of the 49ers. That doesn’t really justify why you’re picking against the Niners to lose to Green Bay in the playoffs. I think you might need to change your avatar to something more appropriate to your new allegiance. Maybe just keep it simple and direct and go with that old classic, a cheesehead. Apparently you aren’t a 49er fan anymore.

True but the Packers have not been a very physical team on offense, and their lack of balance showed. This is exactly the type of team the 49ers defense feasts on.

With the addition of Lacy last season there were flashes of a shift in their philosophy from the very beginning of the season. In the season opener there were a couple of big runs that were called back which really helped to stall their offense.

In the Wildcard game they showed a commitment to the ground game with over 30 runs, teams that attempt 30+ runs against the 49ers usually win, and nearly pulled it off.

If they stick to the run and back it up with a quarterback as skilled as Rodgers the Packers could surprise a lot of people.

It’s a process when you try and change your philosophy from finesse to physicality. After a couple straight losses, they’ve recognized the problem and after two more losses, they’re right on the cusp of…..another defeat, ha!

Comeback player of the year- Navarro Bowman. Since nobody listed any qualifying criteria, such as when the missed playing time occurred, I’m going to predict the 2nd half of the 2014 season (when most people assume Bowman resumes playing) will qualify Bowman for comeback player of the year. I think all of us 49er fans are hoping and/or praying this will be the case.

Eagles to the Super Bowl after a shootout win against the Niners. Hawks 9-6 with a substitute QB and a tore-up defense. Raiders 8-8 and looking good. Pittsburgh loses to the Eagles in a Penn-State grudge match. Johnny what’s-his-name gets two starts and then to the bench. Bust…

Note to Coach Harbaw:
you know what we will be saying if…
you..do..not..win..the..Super..Bowl…
you will be considered an award-winning
disappointment. Please remember:
big brother John already has his Lombardi trophy.
Pete Carroll also picked one up last year.

You missed my follow up comment. I discovered that I had missed episodes from the first two discs. I also thought that the final 3-4 episodes of the season were considerably better then how it started. I liked it enough to give season two a try but we haven’t started it yet. I’m watching Rectify, slllooooowwwww but well acted.

It’s hard to recommend Rectify to people. Yes it’s good but it’s darn hard to watch sometimes because of the pace. Took me two sittings to get through the first episode. Some people will really enjoy it and others will be; wtf is this and why am I watching it.

Team of the year: Cowboys
MVP: Co winners Tony Romo and Dez Byrant
Come back player of the year: Coby Fleener
Coach and GM of the year: Jerry Jones
Offensive player of the year: Alex Smith
Defensive Player of the year: Cowboys D
Writer of the Year: Lowell Cohn

I will be at Cowboy stadium for the opener. From a pride standpoint while this is not a rivalry, it still stands out as one the Niners have to win. Especially because I am going with my brother in law and his frat brothers who all went to UT. They will be in my ear the whole game.
Pretty much guaranteed no Aldon too……

It seems like all 4 NFC divisions, as well as AFC West & North, will knock each other around and have some spoiler upsets to keep the races respectable. Even good teams will be challenged in their divisional road games.
I’d argue that Colts and Pats have inside tracks, but not easy paths.

Eagles winning 13-14 games. Terrible prediction. They will lose most of their NFC East road games and a couple others. 10-6 realistic, 12-4 ABSOLUTE best case. Only two teams in NFC have chance at winning 13-14 games and they remain the 49ers, and Seahawks. They are also only teams who have chance to win the SB. Nothing has changed, same prediction as last year. The gap between them and rest of NFL has not lessened. Could argue that the Niners have gotten better (‘Hawks have not, but still great).

I expect with Foles tape on film many of the Eagles opponents will be better prepared to play him. It will be up to Chip Kelley to keep opposing teams guessing. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a little bit of a regression from Foles, but its also possible he goes the other direction. Will be an interesting season for the Eagles.

This headline presents Joe’s response to questions in a much stronger way than I think he intended.
“Montana was asked by NFL Network if the Seahawks can be a dynasty, and he answered
‘I think they have the capability to’. ”
Joe goes on to give his reasons and the article isn’t hyperbolic, but the headline seems to me to present a more assertive forecast than Joe intended. Read it at Pro Football Talk.

An intelligent man should realize by now that regardless of whether he wants to be seen this way or not he is a representative of the 49ers as a team and organization even though he’s no longer a player. With that said he needs to choose his words a bit more carefully especially when the topic of other teams i.e. the 49ers biggest current rival comes up. If he truly wants to distance himself from the team then he should probably go build that hotel of his somewhere else.

A bit harsh, C4C? My only complaint was a slight disconnect between answer and headline. As I read them in context, Joe’s remarks seem accurate and fine. You’re right, he does walk a fine line and needs to remember where he made his fortune, but we fans can get a bit too touchy sometimes and the headline hopes to push those buttons.

Wasn’t being harsh I don’t think Tuna. I wasn’t making a big deal out of the headline personally just pointing out that Joe needs to realize that things like this will be blown out by certain people and that he could have said “yes, there are a lot of teams that have the potential to be dynasties in the league right now” and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I’m sure Joe realizes that what he says can be used out of context by the media, just as NBC did with George Zimmerman. I saw the Joe interview, and I didn’t have a problem at all with what he said. I found it humorous that they made it into a headline, and I thought to myself the same thing Brotha Tuna did…..

OK, I guess I focused on ‘not build the hotel..’ and was hoping you weren’t too angry. ; >)
BTW, when Joe lived up on Franz Valley did you ever see him or Jennifer in Calistoga? It was closer for them than Santa Rosa, and my wife knew their banker in Calistoga.

Back in my High School days Joe sightings became regular enough that it wasn’t a big deal after awhile. I posted a sighting of him at the local market about a month or so ago. On a board like this it only sounds like “showing off” but him and Dick Vermeil are seen fairly often around town. His house is in Calistoga, he hasn’t been able to sell it yet and his father lives here as well. My two boys and their grandfather helped Joe’s dad move between homes a few years ago. He game them a commemorative plate from one of his collections. I’ll find it and post a photo when I do.

Cool, thanks. Stubby was living near Petaluma a few years back and was an easy guy to talk to. You may not remember Pete Banazak of the Raiders, (probably too long ago) but he lived just down the street from me until a few years ago.

On Jennifer-
At charity events she was always relaxed and gracious.
My wife was a bank exec and in charge of many branches. While visiting Calistoga she was sitting at the branch managers desk when the mgr abruptly stood up and said ‘excuse me Carol, that’s Jennifer and she doesn’t stand in line.’ so after attending to her she returns and My wife asks if she’s hard to deal with.
‘Oh no, she’s always pleasant, and I intend to keep it that way. I am NOT going to be the manager who lost Joe Montana’s account!’

Two seasons ago Dick Vermeil came out to one of our pop warner football practices and ran through drills with us and the other coaches and even helped hold a bag while the kids went through drills. He’s a heck of a nice guy. It was funny usually practice is full of all of the coaches doing there thing but no one wanted to say a thing with ‘Coach’ on the field.

I may have told this story here before, but my son played football with Nate Montana in 2005 at Cardinal Newman High in Santa Rosa. Joe actually came out to practice frequently and worked with the wide receivers, throwing them passes. My son was a wide receiver and got to catch several of those passes, but at the time he didn’t realize what a huge deal or honor it was. He does now that he’s a little older. I was able to sit or stand with Joe at several of the away games and I and all the other Dads tried our best to treat Joe like just another Dad. I think we mostly pulled that off, but it was really, really hard to do. Jennifer was the informal team photographer and all the Mom’s also tried to treat her like just another Mom. She was and is an extremely good looking lady and a very nice person, in spite of all the sometimes rude crap she and Joe would have to put up with all the time, from mostly well meaning but oftentimes also really annoying fans and autograph seekers. I saw several people come up in the stands to seek out Joe for autographs at his Son’s games and he was polite but curt in turning them away. He always explained “I don’t do that at my Son’s games.”

Feeling a bit dirty this morning; watched the first episode of Masters of Sex last night. First let me just say that I’ve had a crush on Lizzy Caplan since HTTM came out but holy smokes she’s even hotter then I had imagined.

As far as the show goes it was only the pilot so I’ll only say that beyond the obvious tactics to get you to watch(gratuitous sex and nudity, which works on me pretty much every time) it seems well written and acted. Martin Sheen is a someone I enjoy watching act and of course there’s still LIzzy. The second season is about to start so If you’ve thought about watching it now is a good time to get caught up on the first.

Sure Scooter that’s what they all say when they get picked up in “those” theaters. Well, here another “quality” show to add to your list — it’s Netflix and it’s online “Orange is the New Color Black.” Haha.

I’ve read Montana’s print interviews and watched it several times on NFL. I take him at his word, we’ve got the “capability,” that’s all.

We Hawk fans are a tortured group, lacking confidence due to so many failures over the years, we assume nothing, take nothing for granted — I even cringe when we have road games. But we lead for a time in 2013 and finished 6-2.

I wont make any predictions until after the preseason, since Hawks intent is to win all games. We must win every home game, crush Cards and I’d love to beat the 49ers in their home!

I’ve never heard of this program you mentioned: “Masters of Sex” and normally I would have said “TMI” haha, — but I pulled up Episode 6 online on http://streamallthis.me — I watched about 3 minutes and it looked a bit boring to me. Haha.

In fact that reminds me I have to catch up with True Blood.

FYI: Best series ever (it was HBO or Showtime) only 8 episodes: TRUE DETECTIVE w/Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Watch it, it’s a must see.